The text wrongly claims that the Spanish defeated the Aztecs because of their iron weapons. Actually, the Spanish were vastly outnumbered, so their weapons alone were irrelevant in the battle. The Spanish had alliances with Indigenous peoples who opposed the Aztec Empire, giving them a much larger army. That defeated the Aztecs.
Cortez had around 500 men. Even if you get rid of 99% of the local population, which they didn't, they'd have been outnumbered in to an absurd degree.
In the battle of Frankenhausen, Germany, 1525, German peasants went up against armored soldiers and the casualties were 5000 peasants dead vs 6 armored soldiers. The technological advantage before modern firearms for formal armies was enormous, even in Europe, even without the help of imported European diseases.
Aztec warriors were not European peasants though . They were highly skilled and well equipped. They didn't have steel blades (except what they captured from the invaders), but their obsidian "swords" were not that much worse in the hands of a skilled fighter. Plus the European handguns were not that reliable and accurate yet to be all that useful except for showing off. If the first shot missed (assuming it didn't misfire) there was no time for another. And guns need a steady supply of powder and bullets, which Cortez didn't have most of the time since he was also at odds with the governor of Cuba.
There's also plenty of accounts from the early days of Cortez' invasion where the Spaniards had a very hard time against the indigenous warriors even when the Spaniards were not largely outnumbered.
The Aztecs lacked horses and attack dogs. The Spanish by contrast had perfected combat with both. Both proved decisive over and over again. You're correct in asserting that guns weren't decisive - although initially he noise and visual display of firearms were a significant factor in confusing and frightening the Aztecs (especially the common people and subjugated indigenous groups).
I think the horses proved useful in some situations (at least to scare the people who had never seen riders), but then the number of horses was somewhere between a dozen at the start and never more than a hundred. And from what I've been reading their use in battle was often hit and miss because the cavalery often didn't have enough room to be effective.
Numbers like that are almost always the same story. I wasn't familiar with that exact battle [1] but it also matches the pattern. It's not like the peasants actually took on the soldiers, but rather you had some peasants inexplicably leave a town, and organize themselves within a circling of wagons, a 'wagon fort'. That wagon fort was then fully encircled, and 'ambushed' starting with artillery.
The peasants immediately broke and fled, which is where you get the crazy ratios from - fleeing armies are extremely vulnerable and near harmless. Had they fought, they likely would have inflicted far greater casualties on the military forces. However given there were roughly comparable peasant and military forces, the outcome was not in question, so it would have been suicide. Of course so was fleeing.
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dainank · · focus · HN ↗
- European diseases
- superior weaponry
- alliances with local Aztec enemies
The first wave of smallpox killed 5-8 million and is by far one of the greatest factors.
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There's also plenty of accounts from the early days of Cortez' invasion where the Spaniards had a very hard time against the indigenous warriors even when the Spaniards were not largely outnumbered.
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somenameforme · · focus · HN ↗
The peasants immediately broke and fled, which is where you get the crazy ratios from - fleeing armies are extremely vulnerable and near harmless. Had they fought, they likely would have inflicted far greater casualties on the military forces. However given there were roughly comparable peasant and military forces, the outcome was not in question, so it would have been suicide. Of course so was fleeing.
[1] - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Frankenhausen" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Frankenhausen
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